Gehry meets Novartis
A workplace full of twists and turns

This content was published on February 21, 2013 11:00 AMFeb 21, 2013 - 11:00

Most office buildings resemble shoeboxes, with their four-cornered rooms and uniform hallways. Not this Novartis office building in Basel, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry: it’s shrill, sideways and spectacular.

Gehry became a star on the architecture stage through his design for the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. Also noteworthy is the Vitra Design Museum in Weil, Germany, which lies directly across the Rhein from Basel.

Behind its facade of glass and steel, Gehry’s Novartis design is dominated by wood. The building houses offices for the pharmaceutical company’s human resources department as well as a 630-seat underground auditorium, restaurant and bar.

These photos were taken by Thomas Meyer and appear in the publication “Novartis Campus – Fabrikstrasse 15” (Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel, 2010).